Hace algunos días, mientras leía esta noticia sobre un bloguero marroquí encarcelado por faltar el respeto al honorable Mohamed VI, vino a mi mente de nuevo el proyecto Ahmad Sherif, que conocimos en Ars Electronica hace un par de semanas. Este proyecto lucha anónimamente desde la red, empleando multiples generos y formatos, contra la represión gubernamental y la censura en Egipto.

http://ahmadsherif.wordpress.com/
http://www.youtube.com/ahmadsherif

Prix Ars Electronica 2008, Honorary Mention Hybrid Art

The Ahmad Sherif Project started on January 19, 2007, in a country overtly described abroad as a police state, which censors, intimidates and brutally punishes the authors of any form of expression it would consider ‘libelous’.

Ahmad Sherif is a virtual character I invented, virtual and invisible so he could survive any hostile context, such as the one described above. This fictitious character is empowered to voice what cannot be voiced, and to reach those who cannot be reached – both the rulers and the people. Over a year, Ahmad Sherif has built a media architecture whose dynamics are based on the most accessible services of the Web 2.0. This conductive canvas would help the migration of his work from one world to another: the internet, the mainstream media, and the street.

Breaking political and social taboos, Ahmad Sherif experiments in new media and networks with no restrictions as to formats, genre, styles or forms of expression, constantly morphing the nature of his expression according to its next enrionment. To date, one can find his signature associated with silent videos, music, animations, pop songs, news articles, online happenings, cell-phone videos circulated on the street, open letters, debates, interviews, comments, e-mails, tags, etc. His works have been massively received as an unexpected ‘glitch’ in the suffocating vicious circle of fear, intimidation and silence, creating around them even more space for unprecedented free expression.

Dictatorship For Dummies / ????? ? ?????

Egyptian Police Brutality/????? -Enta Ya Masry / ??? ?? ????